Agreed 100%.
As for the performance difference question from the OP -
I use a bunch of DAWs on a bunch of machines, on all three platforms (actually in full transparency, I’ve recently phased out all Windows machines in my studio, so now I just run Mac and Linux, but I ran Windows 10/11 up until recently), and the bottom line is that performance varies wildly across platforms, across CPU architectures, across DAWs, across chipsets, and there is NO definitive answer.
The only way to answer your question is to test YOUR DAW and YOUR plugins with YOUR sessions on YOUR hardware with YOUR preferred OS. It’s as simple as that. It’s also a function of how well you’ve configured your machine in some cases.
In general, there are some recent patterns/trends I’ve noticed, but I can also provide examples that contradict these trends. But it’s important to note that this can all change in a matter of a single patch, so this is a constantly shifting landscape over time. However, there are still some general patterns I’ve noticed in recent years.
Most importantly, the grass is not always greener on the other side of the hill. YMMV. Again, you need to test things out YOURSELF. Anecdotal opinions from well-meaning forum people, including myself, will only give you a tiny snapshot of the situation and will most likely NOT correspond directly to YOUR unique circumstances! Also, I find many of the DAW experts out there – while helpful – can also only help you so much before YOU have to test things for YOUR sessions YOURSELF anyway.
But here are some more general trends/patterns I’ve noticed:
1 - There is NO platform or DAW that “just works perfectly out of the box.” However, the closest I’ve been able to achieve in recent years “out of the box” without some tweaks, is:
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A - Reaper running on Apple hardware running an OS version that is the prior version of the OS if a new major OS version has been released in the last 6 months. (In other words, only recently would I recommend that Sonoma is okay for DAW use, otherwise I would recommend staying on Ventura for a while longer.) This is a generally stable, easy, out-of-the-box experience on every Mac I’ve tried with Reaper. I can get up and running in minutes, and no extra drivers for audio devices too, as long as they are class compliant. It’s the closest to plug and play that’s out there IMO. Caveat - I also avoid AU plugins.
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B - Reaper (again) running on a recent Debian-related distro of Linux - such as Ubuntu (currently 24.04) or Linux Mint 21.3 or LMDE 6, works surprisingly well on just about every machine I’ve tried it on, out of the box, from old to semi-recent hardware, with zero extra work for decent performance. In fact, I recently got better performance on the same hardware with Linux than Windows, shockingly with zero effort. Extreme low-latency performance, however, requires more tweaks, and if you are using bleeding edge hardware, you will almost certainly run into issues with kernel support. And I’d also say avoid nVidia graphics cards. I recently sold most of my nVidia cards and replaced them with AMD cards and my Linux DAWs all thanked me for it.
2 - Everything else for Win, Mac, Linux, will require more tweaks to varying degrees to get optimal behavior IMO, depending on many factors. You MIGHT luck out with your hardware, drivers, motherboard features, DAW software, and plugins on any other machine with Windows, macOS, or Linux. But the above two scenarios A and B have given me the LEAST headaches out of the box, repeatedly on different hardware.
3 - Reaper generally performs as well as or more efficiently, on average, than most other DAWs across all platforms in my experience, and this includes performance on Windows, macOS, and Linux of varying OS versions and collections of plugins.
4 - Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not pushing Reaper on people. I use it and like it, but Cubase and Nuendo are very much part of my studio and there are times when I definitely don’t want to use Reaper at all. So I don’t want to make this about Reaper, but we are talking performance in general, so Reaper is obviously going to come up.
Having said that, Cubase can be unfortunately somewhat inconsistent on Windows IMO, based on various factors of hardware, but currently does quite well on Apple Silicon. Steinberg seems to have spent some real dev resources on Apple Silicon recently, thankfully, including optimizing for p/e-cores. So Steinberg should get some kudos for this, and they perform better on Apple Silicon than you might expect, including better than Studio One in my testing.
As for Windows, I found older 11th-gen Intel hardware and earlier to be great for Cubase, and that Cubase 12/13 on Windows 10 was very performant and solid IMO with a motherboard that wasn’t loaded with extra bells and whistles (or I disabled those bells and whistles). Once p- and e- cores were introduced by Intel though, I saw that there were a number of issues so I started buying AMD at that point, which has also been pretty good, except for the latest Ryzen chips which gave me some problems (see below). I would still not use 12th gen and up Intel CPUs TBH, although Steinberg has indicated that they support them now. I am skeptical or at least cautious, and would personally hold off. I think there are more growing pains with p/e cores to come. I could be wrong.
5 - In my own testing with Ryzen 7 7000 series CPUs, I sadly ran into stability problems sometimes under load with DDR5 RAM, especially with 4X sticks on the motherboard on two different motherboards. This was a shocker to me and it did not present itself until under heavy load and RAM testing with various DAWs running Windows 11. I believe this may be an issue related to what some current Ryzen DAW users face, depending on motherboard, BIOS, and RAM configurations. This impacted all DAWs I tested. So whatever you do if you have the latest Ryzen stuff, choose your motherboard and RAM very carefully and test it thoroughly under load. You may need to run your RAM at slower speeds to achieve better stability, etc… YMMV. I feel the platform is still undergoing growing pains, unfortunately.
The broader point of bringing up the latest Ryzen and Intel chips is that DAW users may run into issues, some documented (12th gen issues with Cubase until recently) and not-so-documented (RAM instability issues with 4X sticks on latest Ryzen boards). The lesson I’m trying to take from that is to stay conservative with hardware. You don’t always need or want the latest stuff.
6 - Not all DAWs do well with efficiency cores in newer CPUs as has been stated… However, again, in all fairness, Steinberg is doing better than many and kudos should be given. Remember there are many DAWs out there, and Cubase actually does pretty well in terms of performance in the whole market IMO. But there are so many factors. Reaper is the only one that consistently ranks in the upper tier on all three platforms in terms of performance in my experience, and is usually fast at adopting new CPU architectures. However, it has had its own blips here and there too. Recently, Avid announced support for efficiency cores in Pro Tools, but I have not tested it. Avid’s track record over the years has been in the lower tier of performance and issues unfortunately. So whatever you feel about Steinberg, you’re unlikely to be trading “up” to Avid for performance and stability. But again, YMMV with so many factors.
The good news is that with time, the whole e-core controversy and similar issues with DAWs will likely quiet down (at least until the next big CPU innovation comes along!). Again, I have learned in recent years to try to stay on the conservative side of the hardware equation and let other people have more of the headaches. I regularly violate that rule though as I test out new hardware more than I should for my own sanity. I’m trying though. 
7 - In the long-term trends of DAW performance, Cubase is usually somewhere in the middle of the pack compared to many DAWs in my personal testing. Over the years it varies up and down a little, but right now IMO Cubase is currently on the mid-tier for Windows performance (pending how well they did with recent p/e core optimization on Windows) and they are upper-tier of Apple performance compared to many other DAWs. Where people are seeing deviation from that, I believe is likely related to some hardware or driver issue. Again, I would still NOT run Cubase on bleeding-edge hardware today. If you MUST run bleeding edge hardware, you will fare much better running Reaper TBH; if anything is going to work better on newer hardware, Reaper will likely be the one to be there first. Heck, Reaper even runs on a Raspberry Pi. I mean Justin (over at Reaper) is seriously on the ball about CPUs in general, maybe better than any other DAW developer. Not perfect, but pretty darn good.
8 - As for the OP, Cubase generally performs better than Pro Tools on Win/Mac, but again, this varies over time, and is subject to differences with hardware, drivers, and plugins. But again, don’t be under the illusion that you are trading up if you move to Avid. It may seem that way right now, but the trends show otherwise over time. If you have to use Avid, use it for the most common reasons, which are to exchange projects with your colleagues who are using it, or if you are required to use it for upstream or downstream contracts. Otherwise, I see no advantage – performance or otherwise – to use Avid over Steinberg. YMMV as always.
9 - All the above is subjective, and as I said, it’s a tiny window into one person’s experience. What I’m saying is not going to solve your problems if you are not happy with the performance of any DAW on any platform. Reminder that you need to test things yourself with your precise situation.
Good luck. And again, the grass is not always greener on the other side of the hill.
as you’re NOT using 72% of your availale resources.